Mullen's Exit

When Admiral Mike Mullen hands over the most senior military job Friday, the changing of the guard at the Pentagon will be complete.

By

Matthew Kaminski

Sept. 29, 2011 1:58 p.m. ET

When Admiral Mike Mullen hands over the most senior military job Friday, the changing of the guard at the Pentagon will be complete. Robert Gates left the defense secretary's post in July. General David Petraeus, who oversaw the surge of troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, hung up his military uniform in August to run the Central Intelligence Agency. Adm. Mullen, who has chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff since 2007, was the last senior holdover on the security team from the Bush years. He was less visible than either Secretary Gates or Gen. Petraeus, yet he helped shape a critical era for the military.

His four year tenure saw the U.S. engaged in the hardest fighting since 9/11, first in Iraq and now in Afghanistan. Adm. Mullen wasn't the intellectual architect of the Iraq and Afghan surges, and as Navy chief of staff in late 2006 he initially opposed the Iraqi plan. All the service chiefs were skeptical about the Bush surge.

ENLARGE

Adm. Mike Mullen in Washington last week
Zuma Press

The admiral played a bigger role in Afghanistan. On taking his office, he said the U.S. needed to re-focus on that conflict and Pakistan. This put him in sync with an incoming commander in chief, Barack Obama, who opposed Iraq and considered Afghanistan the good war. During internal debates in 2009, Adm. Mullen stood with his commanders in the field to demand that a new counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan be properly resourced. Bob Woodward's "Obama at War," which gave more space to the White House skeptics who favored a smaller push, portrayed him as trying to tie the president's hands. The characterization stung an officer who worked hard to make the chairman a "military diplomat" who directly advises the president.

Eighteen months after the surge began, President Obama announced a steady withdrawal from Afghanistan this summer, and relations with Pakistan are at a low-point. Military brass were lobbying for a slower drawdown of American forces, irrespective of the election calendar. In Pakistan, Adm. Mullen invested much time and capital to nurture their military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. As relations with Pakistan deteriorated, so did his relations with Gen. Kayani. In a chilly telephone call on May 1, Adm. Mullen informed him about the American raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistani compound. Gen. Kayani was furious.

Adm. Mullen must be, too. As a parting shot across the bow last week, he testified on Capitol Hill that Pakistan's military intelligence arm, the ISI, was behind two recent terrorist attacks on U.S. and NATO facilities in Afghanistan. Yet his engagement with Gen. Kayani helped pave the way for better cooperation on the drone bombing campaign against terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan -- an unquestionable success of the Obama foreign policy.

The son of a prominent Hollywood publicist, Adm. Mullen was a military man that liberals could like. He was comfortable around soldiers and the celebrities he dealt with. Last December, during a USO tour through Afghanistan, I saw his easy rapport with the actor Robin Williams and the cyclist Lance Armstrong. He led the push to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and to allow female sailors on submarines. Behind the scenes, he helped pick the next generation of military leaders. He tended to prefer officers who were battle-tested in Iraq and Afghanistan and who understand and support the military's changed mission in the 21st century. This may be his legacy.

When the White House looked around for a new chairman this spring, the favorite was Gen. James Cartwright, who never deployed to any of the post-9/11 conflicts and wasn't steeped in counterinsurgency warfare. Adm. Mullen quietly opposed his candidacy. In the end, the White House went with Gen. Martin Dempsey, who served in Iraq and knew the Middle East well.

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